The government of Mali’s plan for sustainable recovery from the latest turmoil in the country identifies the integration of environment into policies and strategies and strengthening the private sector in agriculture as priority themes for immediate support. Following this, the government of Canada pledged $75 million in support for access to food, health services and assistance and the government of Norway committed to re-launch bilateral programs of €10 million annually including for food security, at the Mali Donor Conference in Brussels, held on 22^nd of May 2013.

PEI has supported the government of Mali since 2005 to strengthen national capacity to better include poverty-environment objectives in national development planning processes. Since then, over 1,200 development officials have improved their knowledge and capacity in poverty-environment mainstreaming and as a result Mali’s third PRSP was significantly green, including especially chapters on social,  economic and institutional  development. The Malian Agency for Environment and Sustainable Development (AEDD) has played a key role in ensuring that the greening process is being embedded in national coordination mechanisms through the formation of a pool of national experts and the elaboration of a guide for policy greening processes.

The government of Mali’s continued commitment to poverty-environment mainstreaming is reinforced by the fact that environmental policy mainstreaming is recognized as a priority theme for immediate support in 2013-2014. While the government is leading the work, PEI continues to provide important technical support and capacity building for poverty-environment mainstreaming in Mali. In addition, the government of Mali has recently validated a PEI-supported Public Environmental Expenditure Review and will begin the implementation of its recommendations, further strengthening the policy and implementation of poverty-environment objectives across the policy landscape.